TUESDAY, DEC. 11, 2001
SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 3B
Cornhusker wins Heisman
The Associated Press
Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch won college football's top individual award by 62 points over Florida quarterback Rex Grossman on Saturday night in the fourth tightest race in the 67-year history of the award.
PHOTO FROM KRT CAMPUS
Just 585 of the 924 eligible Heisman voters cast their ballots, a 63.3 percent return.
Jim Corcoran, president of the Downtown Athletic Club, said the light response was because of an extraordinary series of events, beginning with the terrorist attacks.
Eric Crouch, Nebraska quarterback, holds the Heisman trophy after winning it by a slight margin.
Indeed, the situation was unique:
"We did everything we could to ensure the integrity of the vote, even extend the deadline a day-and-a-half," Corcoran said. "Under the circumstances, I think it turned out pretty good."
- College football games of Sept. 15 were postponed, many of them rescheduled to Dec. 1, turning a light final day of games into a 23-game schedule and pushing the Southeastern Conference title game to Dec. 8, the same day as the Heisman announcement.
The athletic club was damaged in the terrorist attacks, which claimed the lives of 11 club members, and the Heisman presentation was moved to a midtown hotel. It was the first time the trophy was not awarded at the club.
There was never a clear-cut Heisman front-runner, so voters waited longer before making a decision, then hundreds never sent in a ballot. Or
Dec. 1, three of the top contenders — Grossman, Miami's Ken Dorsey and Oregon's Joey Harrington — played their final games. Crouch had played his final game a week earlier.
■ Mail service has been affected by the search for letters containing anthrax. The deadline for returning ballots had been at noon Dec. 7 but was extended to Saturday afternoon, hours before Crouch won the award.
Corcoran said the athletic club never considered moving the date of the Heisman presentation but added he would-evaluate the voting process and perhaps cut the number of voters. Ballots this year went out to 870 media members and 53 Heisman winners. There was one fan ballot.
"Do we need that many? That's what we need to address." Corcoran said. "Sometime down the road we'll figure this out."
But in the closest Heisman vote ever — Bo Jackson's 45-point win over Chuck Long in 1985 — only 781 of the 1,050 eligible voters (74.3 percent) cast ballots.
Voter apathy is nothing new with Heisman balloting. An 80 percent return is about average, and it's rare when 90 percent of the voters cast ballots.
In 2000, Chris Weinke won the Heisman over Josh Heupel by 76 points, with 796 of 922 voters, or 86.3 percent, cast ballots.
When Billy Sims won in 1978, only 53 percent of the ballots (541 of 1,050) were returned.
were rewritten
The accounting firm Deloitte & Touche LLP.mails out ballots in November after receiving names and addresses from the DAC, which has sectional representatives responsible for updating voting lists by early September.
Voters are asked to list their top three Heisman choices, with three points for first place, two for second and one for third.
Crouch finished with 770 points. based on 162 first-place votes, 98 second-place votes and 88 third-place votes. Grossman had 708 points.
Notre Dame works to win again
The Associated Press
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Myth mixes regularly with reality at Notre Dame, sometimes making it tough to tell the two apart.
Irish fans don't worry whether coach Knute Rocke's famous pregame speech of "Win one for the Gipper" is based on fact, or whether the Four Horsemen were immortalized more for Grantland Rice's prose than their athletic ability.
They are part of the Golden Dome mystique that celebrates everything from a walk-on player in the movie Rudy to
touchdown Jesus on the school library to the two coaches with the best winning percentages in NCAA history in Rockne and Frank Leahy.
Athletic director Kevin White is concerned, though, with what he describes as another myth: that Notre Dame's stringent academic standards and difficult schedule stop the Irish from vying for national championships.
After introducing George O'Leary as the new coach on Sunday, White said he has no doubt Notre Dame can be a powerhouse again.
"If you look at the past, we've recovered from difficult times," he said. "I think we'll find our way to do it again."
Ara Parseghian heard the questions about academics and schedule when he became Notre Dame coach in 1964. Lou Holtz heard it in 1985. They both won national championships in their third seasons.
Among those who follow college football closely, there's a firm belief that the Irish can quickly wake up the echoes.
"Notre Dame can win, and they will win again." Holtz said.
College football pundit Beano Cook said Notre Dame should win a national championship every five years. Paul Hornung, who won a Heisman at Notre Dame in 1956, thinks the Irish will win again. ESPN analyst Lee Corso said there was no reason Notre Dame can't vie regularly for the national championship.
"Notre Dame has no problems," Corso said. "None, Nada."
Before he was fired on Dec. 2, Bob
Davie said that, even though the Irish haven't finished in the Top 10 since 1993, he had no doubt they could become a national power again.
But as he left the job, Davie talked about academics and the schedule making it harder at Notre Dame.
"All I know is the bottom line is there's some good college football players out there that we could not and did not recruit," Davie said.
White disagreed that Notre Dame can't recruit enough top players.
"I think we can in the thick of it,
Ton 10. Ton 15 every year," he said.
Dan Saracino, assistant provost for admissions, said that every few years stories emerged that Notre Dame was tightening requirements to reign in a coach or loosening requirements to allow the football team to become more competitive.
But Tom Lemming, a recruiting analyst, said he interviewed top recruits and found out their gradepoint averages and college entrance exams. He said Notre Dame had lowered its standards the past two years.
Stadium upgrade would help team. Royals owner says
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City Royals owner David Glass says his team urgently needs a stadium upgrade to provide the increased revenue major league baseball expects of smaller-market franchises.
The Associated Press
But Glass said there wouldn't be any threat to move the team or put it up for sale if he didn't get his way.
"No, no, no." Glass told The Kansas City Star on Sunday. "I wouldn't do that. If it gets voted down, if it doesn't get done, then we would work really hard to find other ways to improve with what we have.
"I would absolutely stop short of saying anything that sounded like a threat or doom and gloom."
The former Wal-Mart executive who bought the Royals last year
who bought the Royals last year for $96 million is pushing hard for a $150 million Kauffman Stadium renovation plan that he estimates could produce an additional $30 million in annual revenue for his team.
that boost in revenue, Glass said, would enable the long-struggling Royals to become more competitive. The team has had losing records for seven years in a row, and last season's 65-97 mark was its worst ever.
"Whatever additional revenues we generate, as long as we follow our break-even philosophy, that money would go into getting better players." Glass said.
There are many obstacles to approval of the stadium renovation plan, which calls for $125 million in public funding, with the Glass family to add $25 million of its own money. In addition, during the life of a new stadium lease extending through 2027, the Royals want another $50 million to $75 million in renovations.
The work is tethered to a $1.8 billion downtown revitalization package that also includes a new arena that could compete for tax money.
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig acknowledged that the 28-year-old Kauffman Stadium was relatively new after his appearance before a congressional committee in Washington last week. "But it needs work," he said. "There's no question about that."
Glass said he thought that without new revenue, his team had little chance to regain the stature it enjoyed as a playoff contender from the mid-1970s through the early 1990s.
Under the proposal rolled out recently by Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Kay Barnes, the $125 million in renovations would allow the Royals to widen concourses at the stadium, expand concession outlets, add two brand-name restaurants beyond the outfield and create more retail opportunities. The work would be completed by the start of the 2005 season.
Selig told the House Judiciary Committee last week that baseball lost about $519 million last season on revenues of $3.5 billion. The Royals were one of only five of the 30 major league teams that did not lose money in 2001. The team's profit of $1.47 million was made possible by $16.13 million from revenue sharing.
Last season the Royals produced $63.7 million in local revenue and expect a similar amount in 2002. Teams that have moved into new facilities have seen a sharp revenue increase — Milwaukee went from $69.6 million to $113.4 million, Pittsburgh from $70.4 million to $108.7 million.
The major league average was $118.3 million, led by the New York Yankees with $242.2 million.
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